Reading a novel is like watching a potter at work: out of a lump of words, a story emerges. Or maybe it is more like being a potter yourself, the story taking shape right between your hands. As you pull the words up from the page, you see the contours of lives—the curves, the contradictions. It is more difficult to discern the shape of our lives, one chapter overlapping with another.
Conversation after a time bores me, games tire me, and my own thoughts, which we are told are the unfailing resource of a sensible man, have a tendency to run dry. Then I fly to my book as the opium-smoker to his pipe.We need to stop blaming the TV and the internet for the world's loss of readers. It's our own fault. Personally, the books that bring me greatest pleasure are those that are well written, have real merit, and tell a ripping good tale to boot.
The important thing is to allow ourselves to read what we love--otherwise (as is happening everywhere) we'll stop reading altogether.
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